A Minnesota wildlife official says a mountain lion that was struck and killed on an interstate highway in suburban Minneapolis Wednesday morning was originally from Northwest Nebraska.
Dan Stark, a large carnivore specialist with the Minnesota Dept of Natural Resources, says the cougar had a Nebraska Game and Parks ear tag from the Pine Ridge placed on it in 2021 when it was a kitten.
Male cougars sometimes leave their native areas in search of females not dominated by other males – trips that can cover hundreds of miles.
Stark also says the dead mountain lion was more than likely the same one captured on home security video sauntering across a driveway earlier this week in the Minneapolis suburb of Golden Valley.
The section of Interstate 394 where the cougar was struck by an SUV is a short distance from the neighborhood where the video was shot.
Cougars are exceedingly rare in the Minneapolis area. In fact, a cougar hadn’t been seen in Hennepin County in nearly 20 years before this incident.